Juan Cole, and many other people, are telling me I now face a Very Important Moral Question. They insist that I must take a stand, that I must choose between opposing United States imperialist actions, a traditional position of (at least some of) the left, or condone the glibly phrased “slaughter of thousands”. In Cole’s words
The arguments against international intervention are not trivial, but they all did have the implication that it was all right with the world community if Qaddafi deployed tanks against innocent civilian crowds just exercising their right to peaceful assembly and to petition their government.
See that? Either I support a foreign policy establishment whose five decades of cynical, ruthless, corrupt, and anti-democratic behavior has been well-documented, or I am implying that it is “all right” with me for thousands of people to be slaughtered. Forgive me, but I am not leaning over that barrel.
Clarifying update: Based on the comments, I want to correct a mistake I made with this diary. The focus on Cole has distracted from the point I hope to make. I am offended by the particular post I reference, but I take that post as representing more or less the views of many. This diary is not about Juan Cole as a person or as a commentator. This diary is about the underling authoritarian notion that, because the media and the government has selected an issue, everyone has a moral obligation to weigh in on it, yea or nay. Some people are living quite productive, helpful moral lives with no help at all from the agenda setters. And they will do a lot more toward bringing peace and democracy than a thousand cruise missiles.
I have some Very Important Moral Questions to pose to Mr. Cole. Is his lack of urgency over stopping the dehumanizing of thousands of people in Gaza an indication that the situation there is “all right” with him? I haven’t seen him discuss the depraved prison-for-profit scandal in the United States, nor the deplorable conditions in those prisons? Is everything, then, “all right” with him there? Does Juan Cole think the indiscriminate killing of civilians by drones, a war crime, is “all right”, because I don’t see him urgently insisting that action be taken to stop the slaughter? It is accurate, incidentally, to use the term “thousands” when speaking of Pakistani civilians killed by U.S drones.
Surely it is clear by now that I could go on at length in this fashion. Relax, I wouldn’t want to disturb people by bringing up suffering which is not currently on the State Department Agenda. Oh, sorry, just one more. Has Cole spared a thought for Bradley Manning today, who likely was awakened every few minutes last night?
Here’s the gist: neither Juan Cole nor the United States establishment enjoys any authority with which to frame my moral questions. My moral decisions do not arise on the basis of what the government/media authorities choose to thrust into my face. I do not follow the U.S. media like a puppy after a bouncing ball. Mr. Cole does not define my worldview. I strive to live with an awareness that is minimally reactive to the artificial constructs portrayed by our media as news. And this is where the other choice comes in.
But first, let’s clarify more fully the terms which which Cole would hem me in.
Among reasons given by critics for rejecting the intervention are:
1. Absolute pacifism (the use of force is always wrong)
2. Absolute anti-imperialism (all interventions in world affairs by outsiders are wrong).
3. Anti-military pragmatism: a belief that no social problems can ever usefully be resolved by use of military force.
At least he is respectful enough to use the phrase “among the reasons”. Here is another reason, for example, one less general than his suggestions, one more specific to the history of the U.S. military industrial complex.
I. do. not. trust. them. I do not fantasize that U.S. foreign policy is an extension of my own good will. I have watched them for decades. I am waiting to see them act in the interest of people whose countries they bomb, embargo, exploit, and manipulate through subterfuge. I have read what they say their goals are. The stated goals are consistent with their Machiavellian behavior.
Mr. Cole, apparently, sees little that has remained constant in U.S. foreign policy since the CIA robbed Iran of democracy in 1952.
Military intervention is always selective, depending on a constellation of political will, military ability, international legitimacy and practical constraints.
I don’t see that much variability, apart from the methods employed. Sometimes existing authoritarian regimes facilitate the exploitation our corporations crave. At other times, clandestine operations are needed. Sometimes we have to install our own man (Iraq), and sometimes we can befriend existing thugs (the drug lords of Afghanistan). Sure, circumstances and conditions vary. But I do see some fairly blatant constants, none of which bode well for the people of Libya. Until the last couple of weeks, “political will, military ability, international legitimacy, and practical constraints” all boiled down to a policy in which entailed selling Gaddafi the weapons with which he oppressed the Libyans. Now “the constellation” has changed. Is there any reason, any reason whatsoever, to think that the level of concern for the people of Libya has also changed?
Incidentally, how many people are operating under the delusion that these impassioned discussions will have much impact on U.S. policy. I saw the other day that in 2004, 69% of Americans opposed our occupation of Iraq. I had forgotten that there were even polls on the issue, it's be so long since I've seen one. We all seemed to have resigned ourselves to the fact that the U.S. will stay as long as they feel like staying. Sure, this discussion looks like democracy, but it would be more accurate to see it as a telephone poll to see whether people think Charlie Sheen should get his job back. Our opinion is not going to affect what our government does in Libya, only how they sell it back home. This fact alone should give pause to those who fantasize democracy at the tip of a spear.
Well, Mr. Know It All, I hear you saying, what is the alternative? Well, one alternative, out of an almost infinite number, is to choose for oneself what suffering in what part of the world deserves one’s attention today. I hope people here are not so naïve as to trust the traditional media to triage our news. The fact that we have seen almost non-stop coverage of Libya rather than of other equally horrendous situations is related to U.S. foreign policy goals rather than to any inherent importance of the news being reported.
So, this is what I am saying. We can choose not to accept the superficial framing of the most shallow media, which is driven in almost all cases by ulterior motive. We can take responsibility where we focus our attention. For those of us who are acutely aware of the suffering in Gaza, as well as in the mountains of Pakistan, as sell as in the Marianas, as well as next door, we do not feel compelled to react to suffering which the media chooses to throw in front of us. We know there is much suffering. We have learned to live with the pain of this on a daily basis, and we know that bombs dropped in Libya, even if they were to achieve their goal, will not relieve us of the burden of responsibility toward our fellow humans which we feel every day. We live with a sense of urgency. This is why I consider Juan Cole’s piece to be deeply presumptuous, deeply insulting.
I know a man who is working night and day to save islanders in the South Seas from the sea rise which is coming as a result of climate change. He is not consumed with a sudden moral choice over what happens to the Libyans, nor is he indifferent to their fate. I know a man who is working night and day to facilitate healing dialog between Iraqis and Americans. He is not shocked by the sight of vulnerable Libyans about to be slaughtered. He was in Fallujah during the illegal bombing there. He knows these things are happening all over the world, and he is already doing all he can to bring an end to such things. He is not expecting help from the U.S. military in his endeavors.
In the interest of completeness, let me acknowledge what is unique about Libya as compared with the many, many, many examples of suffering throughout the world. In Libya, the United States is proposing to take action. The U.S. government is not offering drastic measures to stop home foreclosures, nor is it proposing a blitz to stop death-by-spreadsheet in our hospitals. They are offering, however, to do something in Libya. I will not be emotionally manipulated into accepting this as some sort of moral dilemma, but I do acknowledge that this makes it relevant for me to have an opinion. My opinion is that what is promised is not what will be delivered. Motives aside, war is not a surgical tool for precisely achieving worthwhile ends. Especially war which, while important to many caring Americans, is not so important that we want to see our sons and daughters die in Libya. If presented with that stark moral choice, my educated guess is that most righteous supporters of U.S. action would quickly say, tactfully of course, better them than us.
West Point graduate Andrew Bacevich has studied war. He has seen war become glorified in the American mind, converted from the filthy failure of diplomacy it actually is to a high-tech sterile tool for achieving ends. Here he is speaking with Bill Moyers about Afghanistan, just before President Obama chose not to divert from the calamitous policies he had inherited there. Advice, sadly, which needs repeating.
[emphasis added]
"Be careful." "Don't plunge ahead." Recognize that force has utility, but that utility is actually quite limited. Recognize that when we go to war, almost inevitably, there are going to be unanticipated consequences. And they're not going to be happy ones.
Above all, recognize that, when you go to war, it's unlikely there's a neat tidy solution. It's far more likely that the bill that the nation is going to pay in lives and in dollars is going to be a monumental one.
source
It is depressing that the following analysis by Bacevich is as true today under the Obama administration as it was when he delivered this address during the Bush administration. Just as Bacevich predicted it would be.
[emphasis added]
As prophet, Niebuhr warned that what he called "our dreams of managing history" — dreams borne out of a peculiar combination of arrogance, hypocrisy, and self-delusion — posed a large and potentially mortal threat to the United States. Today we ignore that warning at our peril.
Since the end of the Cold War the management of history has emerged as the all but explicitly stated purpose of American statecraft. In Washington, politicians speak knowingly about history's clearly discerned purpose and about the responsibility of the United States, at the zenith of its power, to guide history to its intended destination.
source
A key message Bacevich takes from Niebuhr is one of humility. Not only must we understand the limits of what a government — and its military — can accomplish, but we must resist the temptation to guide history towards some perceived purpose or end:
Such humility is in particularly short supply in present-day Washington. There, especially among neoconservatives and neoliberals, the conviction persists that Americans are called up on to serve, in Niebuhr's most memorable phrase, "as tutors of mankind in its pilgrimage to perfection."
snip
...giving up our Messianic dreams and ceasing our efforts to coerce history in a particular direction. This does not imply a policy of isolationism. It does imply attending less to the world outside of our borders and more to the circumstances within. It means ratcheting down our expectations. Americans need what Niebuhr described as "a sense of modesty about the virtue, wisdom and power available to us for the resolution of [history's] perplexities."
Humility. The humility to embrace the unexciting daily grind of improving the world. The humility to accept that we do not control history’s arc. The humility not to frame one’s personal views as moral necessities.