I think you're replying to last night's twitter convo? What's Kos got to do with it? The left has people making scurrilous charges of betrayal, too. The right usually does it with a stab-in-the-back theme, which underlies the Woodward attack, rather than with a blood-for-profit. theme. The main impediment to the spread of a new Dolchstosslegende is that so few on the right honestly believe in paths to full victory or extended victory in Afghanistan and Iraq. About the only specific idea they come up with is the notion that if Obama had tried harder he could have gotten a better SOFA in Iraq, but no one cares, and the implication of a larger and longer continuous presence in Iraq remains impossibly unpopular.
"Good war/bad war" was something someone else made up. Afghanistan was the better-justified war that, according to campaign rhetoric, had suffered from inattention due to the Iraq War - none of which has necessarily any bearing on what the best or a better path in the situation of 2009 to the present would have been or would be.
If you did not believe in the surge then the proper funding for it would have been the least you could get away with it. To call it "underfunded" is to presume, without evidence, that there was some actually available higher level of funding that would have led to better results.
I think our fore-parents' exceptional status (as colonials) was already a given, and that the condition became intolerable for them or un-sustainable for the British reflected other factors. The radical forms of exceptionality regarding slaves and "savages" existed prior to independence. In the imaginations and terminology of the Founders, the consolidation and expansion of the new state already amounted to an "imperial" project ahead of them, something many viewed quite positively. Sooner or later we get to the question of deconstruction, and the critique of modes of thought or ways of being/writing/etc. held already to imply and therefore inevitably to reinforce or re-inscribe or re-produce "the imperial" (logocentric, phallocentric, racist, classist, sexist, etc.).
I've now read the Stoler essay, and am mulling over how best to respond to it or its possible uses in this discussion. Much of what she writes seems directed at her academic colleagues with a presumed shared interest in a particular radical anthropology project, in relation to the situation ca. 2006 as she perceived it. It's hard for me to isolate the part beyond the paragraphs you quoted that might matter to the rest of us and how. Am not saying it's not worth the effort, however...
To the contrary, it's the existence of one or another empire or effectively imperial structure that makes a constabulary function possible, though we again run into questions of definition, and the familiar problem of "isms" that sometimes refer to ideology, sometimes to policy or substance, sometimes both at once, and in any event contestably.
Right - but how do we know that the formula isn't fully reversible, as don miguel is implicitly suggesting - i.e., that the exception produced the imperialism? A further related question would be whether you are or she is presuming an alternative and a better one.
Meant to say tho that those even thoughs often seem to turn into becauses, and back again. For the same reason, I have to struggle to avoid overusing "even and especially" when exploring these dialectics. I'll have to take a look at this "intimacy" question, though initially it looks like something different from what I had in mind with "sacrificial community." I started defining the term - which refers to ideas discussed here several times - then realized I had only enough time to get myself in trouble.
I expressed myself ambiguously: The point was that "the" empire might not be a "single" empire or expressive of any single imperialism. It might not qualify as imperial at all, or the phenomenon may not be a singular phenomenon at all, but to acknowledge alternative answers isn't to adopt them. I think we can speak of one neo-imperialistic complex - a single Empire or Neo-Empire - an imperialism of imperialisms that by the nature of imperialism tends toward, insists on, and compels unity or univocity, and that in the present era it still resolves to a state-imperial project under American leadership. At the same time, it's possible only because "America" or "American" does not fundamentally refer to the ethno-national concept, but rather to its negation.
At a certain point you also have to begin to ask - or don't "have to" but it may cross your mind!, especially if a leftist or post-leftist mind - to what extent "the" empire is "an" empire at all. So we can talk about multiple simultaneous, partly autonomous imperialisms, joined in part by narrative, but not fully commensurable and therefore contradictory: So, the national empire (or national-imperial narrative) overlaps the transnational economic empire, and there are other empires or imperialisms, sometimes expressed as spheres of influence or imperial potentials. To varying extents they may depend on each other, but in other ways come into conflict. The national-imperial narrative retains its strength and arguably its primacy because it focuses mutually reinforcing relatively dynamic technological, economic, and political factors in relatively stable geographic and cultural-historical formations, even though the last remains a principle of authentic change or "progress," even though geography is eventually subject to alteration (as discussed in relation to geographical determinism previously) and even though what finally binds the neo-imperial formation together is its connection to (the) sacrificial community. The last "even though" requires its own development.
I think I see what you're saying: You meant the "error" would be for us to see the expeditionary misadventures of the '00s and perhaps whatever Obamian follow-ons or diversions as "great defeats." If so, then I mostly agree with you, and the analysis would likely extend to Vietnam, Korea, and sundry other wars that count as small compared to the world wars, but seemed vastly problematic in other ways, morally for us, materially for adversaries and bystanders. Some hold Mithridates in higher regard than that, however, at least in reference to the terror he is said to have put in the hearts of the Romans.
Not really sure what you see as similar for us to the Jugurthan and Mithridatic wars, nor what you mean by "Empire." Obviously, I think the term, carefully defined, can be usefully applied to the U.S., and in multiple ways, even if for all sorts of reasons it doesn't operate according to the same forms and definitions as the empires of previous eras.
It's a version of the "Mountain Strategy." And that's exactly what they or some say about mountains, or "a mountain," anyway.
As for the rest of Stoler and Bond, I still read a lot of leftwing and leftish critique of that sort, but in a lot of it - not sure about S & B yet - the effort to read through or past governing prejudices and presumptions sometimes gets taxing.
Regarding Egypt and the others mentioned by don miguel, looking for and finding new sponsors are not the same thing, and not all sponsorships are alike. India has too many people and too much potential simply to be ignored, and we're not ignoring it, and the KSA still plays too significant a role in the global energy economy to be ignored, and we not ignoring it, but whether we want or need to deliver "dictates" to them, and ought to or can prevent them from developing their own alliance and trading relationships, are other questions.
I think you're replying to last night's twitter convo? What's Kos got to do with it? The left has people making scurrilous charges of betrayal, too. The right usually does it with a stab-in-the-back theme, which underlies the Woodward attack, rather than with a blood-for-profit. theme. The main impediment to the spread of a new Dolchstosslegende is that so few on the right honestly believe in paths to full victory or extended victory in Afghanistan and Iraq. About the only specific idea they come up with is the notion that if Obama had tried harder he could have gotten a better SOFA in Iraq, but no one cares, and the implication of a larger and longer continuous presence in Iraq remains impossibly unpopular.
"Good war/bad war" was something someone else made up. Afghanistan was the better-justified war that, according to campaign rhetoric, had suffered from inattention due to the Iraq War - none of which has necessarily any bearing on what the best or a better path in the situation of 2009 to the present would have been or would be.
If you did not believe in the surge then the proper funding for it would have been the least you could get away with it. To call it "underfunded" is to presume, without evidence, that there was some actually available higher level of funding that would have led to better results.
I think our fore-parents' exceptional status (as colonials) was already a given, and that the condition became intolerable for them or un-sustainable for the British reflected other factors. The radical forms of exceptionality regarding slaves and "savages" existed prior to independence. In the imaginations and terminology of the Founders, the consolidation and expansion of the new state already amounted to an "imperial" project ahead of them, something many viewed quite positively. Sooner or later we get to the question of deconstruction, and the critique of modes of thought or ways of being/writing/etc. held already to imply and therefore inevitably to reinforce or re-inscribe or re-produce "the imperial" (logocentric, phallocentric, racist, classist, sexist, etc.).
I've now read the Stoler essay, and am mulling over how best to respond to it or its possible uses in this discussion. Much of what she writes seems directed at her academic colleagues with a presumed shared interest in a particular radical anthropology project, in relation to the situation ca. 2006 as she perceived it. It's hard for me to isolate the part beyond the paragraphs you quoted that might matter to the rest of us and how. Am not saying it's not worth the effort, however...
To the contrary, it's the existence of one or another empire or effectively imperial structure that makes a constabulary function possible, though we again run into questions of definition, and the familiar problem of "isms" that sometimes refer to ideology, sometimes to policy or substance, sometimes both at once, and in any event contestably.
Right - but how do we know that the formula isn't fully reversible, as don miguel is implicitly suggesting - i.e., that the exception produced the imperialism? A further related question would be whether you are or she is presuming an alternative and a better one.
Meant to say tho that those even thoughs often seem to turn into becauses, and back again. For the same reason, I have to struggle to avoid overusing "even and especially" when exploring these dialectics. I'll have to take a look at this "intimacy" question, though initially it looks like something different from what I had in mind with "sacrificial community." I started defining the term - which refers to ideas discussed here several times - then realized I had only enough time to get myself in trouble.
Have downloaded the piece and look forward to reading it soon.
I expressed myself ambiguously: The point was that "the" empire might not be a "single" empire or expressive of any single imperialism. It might not qualify as imperial at all, or the phenomenon may not be a singular phenomenon at all, but to acknowledge alternative answers isn't to adopt them. I think we can speak of one neo-imperialistic complex - a single Empire or Neo-Empire - an imperialism of imperialisms that by the nature of imperialism tends toward, insists on, and compels unity or univocity, and that in the present era it still resolves to a state-imperial project under American leadership. At the same time, it's possible only because "America" or "American" does not fundamentally refer to the ethno-national concept, but rather to its negation.
At a certain point you also have to begin to ask - or don't "have to" but it may cross your mind!, especially if a leftist or post-leftist mind - to what extent "the" empire is "an" empire at all. So we can talk about multiple simultaneous, partly autonomous imperialisms, joined in part by narrative, but not fully commensurable and therefore contradictory: So, the national empire (or national-imperial narrative) overlaps the transnational economic empire, and there are other empires or imperialisms, sometimes expressed as spheres of influence or imperial potentials. To varying extents they may depend on each other, but in other ways come into conflict. The national-imperial narrative retains its strength and arguably its primacy because it focuses mutually reinforcing relatively dynamic technological, economic, and political factors in relatively stable geographic and cultural-historical formations, even though the last remains a principle of authentic change or "progress," even though geography is eventually subject to alteration (as discussed in relation to geographical determinism previously) and even though what finally binds the neo-imperial formation together is its connection to (the) sacrificial community. The last "even though" requires its own development.
I think I see what you're saying: You meant the "error" would be for us to see the expeditionary misadventures of the '00s and perhaps whatever Obamian follow-ons or diversions as "great defeats." If so, then I mostly agree with you, and the analysis would likely extend to Vietnam, Korea, and sundry other wars that count as small compared to the world wars, but seemed vastly problematic in other ways, morally for us, materially for adversaries and bystanders. Some hold Mithridates in higher regard than that, however, at least in reference to the terror he is said to have put in the hearts of the Romans.
Not really sure what you see as similar for us to the Jugurthan and Mithridatic wars, nor what you mean by "Empire." Obviously, I think the term, carefully defined, can be usefully applied to the U.S., and in multiple ways, even if for all sorts of reasons it doesn't operate according to the same forms and definitions as the empires of previous eras.
It's a version of the "Mountain Strategy." And that's exactly what they or some say about mountains, or "a mountain," anyway.
As for the rest of Stoler and Bond, I still read a lot of leftwing and leftish critique of that sort, but in a lot of it - not sure about S & B yet - the effort to read through or past governing prejudices and presumptions sometimes gets taxing.
Regarding Egypt and the others mentioned by don miguel, looking for and finding new sponsors are not the same thing, and not all sponsorships are alike. India has too many people and too much potential simply to be ignored, and we're not ignoring it, and the KSA still plays too significant a role in the global energy economy to be ignored, and we not ignoring it, but whether we want or need to deliver "dictates" to them, and ought to or can prevent them from developing their own alliance and trading relationships, are other questions.