www.iowaliberal.com
Liberals surrender to the right, news at 11.
The problems with the "Euston Manifesto" are both subtle and egregious. But worst of all, it is completely pointless, except to vindicate Hugh Hewitt and Michele Malkin and every other half-baked wingnut pundit. Yes, most of the principles stated within are on the surface quite agreeable. They're not even up for debate. Let me stress that. They were never in question. The Euston Manifesto claims that liberals have created doubt. It's our fault, and now we must reaffirm that we like democracy and freedom.
This is a McCarthy-ite loyalty oath, nothing more.
We must admit to transgressions never committed and re-pledge ourselves to loyalties never lost. "Every accusation of the right since 9/11 was true, and we're sorry." More specifically, 90% of the manifesto is drawn from two issues: Iraq, and Israel. The point? Reinforce every rightwing talking point that the right used not only against Ramsey Clark, but everybody who opposed invading Iraq, and everybody who has been critical of Israel and U.S. policy regarding.
The other 10%? Well, of course, if you dared to differ from "They hate us for our freedom!" then you were anti-American, so apply the necessary apologies:
"We repudiate the way of thinking according to which the events of September 11, 2001 were America's deserved comeuppance, or "understandable" in the light of legitimate grievances resulting from US foreign policy. What was done on that day was an act of mass murder, motivated by odious fundamentalist beliefs and redeemed by nothing whatsoever. No evasive formula can hide that."
Odious fundamentalist beliefs, certainly, but also geopolitics. Pointing this out doesn't justify 9/11. It's about "If A, then B." It's about pragmatism. It's about not pretending that we were just sitting around minding our own business and a bunch of religious nuts on the other side of the world said "Hey, Americans are free, let's attack them!" After 9/11, people like me tried to figure out what exactly was behind this all. It was President Bush and those on the right who were busy making excuses.
Regarding Iraq:
"This opposes us...to those on the Left who have actively spoken in support of the gangs of jihadist and Baathist thugs of the Iraqi so-called resistance...observing a tactful silence or near silence about the ugly forces of the Iraqi "insurgency"..."
I- along with anybody who knew what the hell they were talking about- predicted the sectarian tensions and strife in Iraq before we went there, when President Bush didn't know the difference between a Shia and a Sunni. While the right was busy calling them "Saddam loyalists" and "terrorists" or "mostly foreigners," the left was trying to point to the hard facts that were resulting in the insurgency and subsequent civil war. The brutality of the insurgents is a factor, but for what purpose? How does that affect what we do on a daily basis? If anything it should have guided us to behave even more honorably, but alas with Abu Ghraib and Shiite death squads we have done more to sink to their level than to rise above it. Yep, Iraqis fight dirty, really fucking dirty. I know, you know, everybody knows. Ultimately there's little point in harping on it except as it relates to our choices. And when we made the choice to go diving into a Middle East quagmire, we should have known from the start what kind of warfare we'd be facing. If I were an Iraqi, if I were an Arab, if I were a Muslim, I would have more to say about it and the shame it induced in me. The question facing me is what do I do about it? And it leads me to conclude, primarily, that I want to be involved with such people as little as possible. I don't want to be in their lands, I don't want to support their dictatorships, I don't want to stir up their nationalism. I want to leave them alone, and I want to be left alone. And our conflicts with the Middle East have not arisen out of us trying to mind our own business.
"We are, however, united in our view about the reactionary, semi-fascist and murderous character of the Baathist regime in Iraq, and we recognize its overthrow as a liberation of the Iraqi people. We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country's infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted..."
Liberals have, in fact, tried to inform our leadership about what Iraq really is about and how to go about things better. Every single sane person would like to have seen Saddam Hussein disappear and a functioning liberal democracy appear in Iraq. That this could actually happen was simply never a solid prospect.
The problem has been that at every turn, at every insistence that things were being done the wrong way, or that they were not as they were described, the right fought back by attacking liberals personally over the issue of democracy itself, just as the Euston Manifesto does. There was no debate over democracy except in the minds of the right. It was a WHAT and a HOW issue, not a WHY. The apologia of the manifesto is a direct concession to the right, an excusal of their deliberate shift of the debate at every point.
"Amongst educated and affluent people are to be found individuals unembarrassed to claim that the Iraq war was fought on behalf of Jewish interests, or to make other "polite" and subtle allusions to the harmful effect of Jewish influence in international or national politics -- remarks of a kind that for more than fifty years after the Holocaust no one would have been able to make without publicly disgracing themselves. We stand against all variants of such bigotry."
Wowee wow. Ah, yes, thanks. I understand now that there shall be no more criticism of Israel. Let's move on!
Or, rather, to hell with that. There is no logical principle that suggests that Israel's interests and our own must necessarily be the same. They can differ. If they didn't, there wouldn't be a need for an Israeli lobby in the first place, we'd just magically do everything they needed anyway. And since there is an Israeli lobby, one cannot claim a principle that says it could not possibly influence us in any way contrary to our best interests. The writers of the manifesto have, yep, completely sold out to Israel here.
That doesn't mean I think the left handles the Israeli issue perfectly. That doesn't mean there isn't anti-Semitism out there. There is a general lack of evenhandedness from virtually everybody about the issue. As the manifesto outlines specifically, evenhandedness is itself offensive, for one must consider the emotional heft of the Holocaust as a reason to refrain from negative criticism of Israel. You must be biased, it claims. If you criticize Israel, you obviously don't care about the Holocaust enough.
Bull. I care about the Holocaust greatly. It has moved me to tears several times. I've spent far more of my life concerned about the Holocaust than I have the Palestinian issue. I feel for them. I feel for their rage, their grief, and also their madness. I believe wholeheartedly that Israel was and entirely understandable and noble reaction to the Holocaust. Yes, yes, set up a homeland for a homeless people. Create safety for those who have been unsafe. Do it! They're a great people. You could spend your life admiring the accomplishment and character of the Jewish people. Frankly, they're pretty great.
Unfortunately, they're still human. And those humans couldn't pick their real estate for the life of them. Hint: scrap the holy book as a guide, and case the joint first. Yep, I wish we hadn't still been such Hebe-hatin' assholes even after saving them. I wish we'd offered them Montana or something. I still wish we'd offer them all American citizenship today. But they went and planted themselves in the most dangerous place of all. Add a government to the mix and you're going to have problems.
The irony is that Israel is just starting to wake up from some of their madness. They've mostly given up on the delusion of occupation as safety, and I applaud their unilateral withdrawal. Hint: unilateral invasion bad, unilateral withdrawal good! Ariel Sharon, after so many years, finally said "Holy shit we've been going about this the wrong way." On queue, liberals must now apologize for suggesting the exact same thing.
The truth is that there has been much more thoughtful and vigorous debate about Israel inside Israel than in America. Another fact is that most of the American Jewish community is strongly liberal. The problem is, of course, the rabid rightwingers. The Jewish people, like any other, have their own band of excrement-tossing thugs and reactionaries, and they have abused the memory of the Holocaust for their own ends as badly as Bush and the right have abused 9/11. In Israel, there's less sensitivity to differences of opinion because most of the populace is Jewish. In America we recognize that we're mostly not Jewish, and there is a great desire to be respectful. We have mourned the Holocaust for sixty years. The last thing any civilized American wants to do is disrespect it, or to be seen as disrespectful.
This reflex has caused us to be paralyzed, as the prostrate liberals signing the Euston Manifesto, unable to demand more oversight and influence over the one half of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict that we actually have some control over. Of course, the Palestinians have been a gang of screw-ups and whiners. But I feel very little control over that. Israel has certainly had a great deal of control over them, to almost no avail. I don't feel like I can say much that will change what Palestinians do. What I do feel is that Israel can do a lot to determine what situation it faces, and that Israel's situation affects ours quite strongly.
Were Jewish interests "behind" the Iraq War? Alone, hell no. But were they a factor? That's not even up for debate. Of course they were. Have you been able to argue with a rightwinger who didn't point to Saddam Hussein rewarding the families of suicide bombers as supporting terrorism (then equivocating it with the US/Al Queda conflict)?
It's a topic well worth discussing. We've been so one-sided in our dealing with Israel and it has gotten us nowhere. Israel had to decide for itself to change, we simply concurred. What could pressure twenty years ago have accomplished?
Ah, but I've explained enough. Most of this is probably redundant for those of us on the left. We knew this shit already. It's all in service of fighting back the tidal wave of degenerate lying from the right. The Euston Manifesto surrenders to the lying. It's a shame, as it does pay lip service to some excellent ideals, ones that I do absolutely hold. But I won't sign to them when they're wrapped up in such cowardice and misinformation. Perhaps some well-meaning liberals tried their best here, but if you told me that it was actually Glenn Reynolds, Hugh Hewitt, and Michele Malkin behind it, I wouldn't be mystified. Hell, even my beloved Andrew Sullivan could be responsible for it, and I'm sure he's clapping his hands over it. But just cuz I love the hairy boob doesn't mean I excuse his fingerpointing at the left either.
This is capitulation. If you've got a metaphorical pair of testes or ovaries, it behooves you to do as Tbogg suggests and wipe your bottom with it. The lies of the right give me no cause to apologize.