GOP Brownshirts

[texaspimp]

I did not mean to imply that all Democrats are against all preemption. If you drew that inferrence from my earlier posts, I regret my error.

I do believe, and Chris Alger confirms, that the Kerry/Edwards stance on preemption is ambiguous.

[andyfox]

Good points. Of course the Cold War wasn't all that cold too. I suppose all countries do it, but ours makes a particular hobby of claiming we only act altruistically, with all the buzz words ("democracy" being our favorite) thrown in. Truman was told by the Republicans to "scare the hell" out of the people or else they couldn't get away politically with supporting him. And so he did and it became a habit that persists to this day.

Truth is an elusive commodity in public discourse (particularly where foreign policy is concerned), and deliberately so. The thing that amazed me here at 2+2 was the tenacity with which those who disagreed with what I had to say insisted that there was no mendacity invovled in the government's claims leading up to the invasion of Iraq. What government has ever told the truth when going to war?

One of my favorite commentaries is from, of all things, the movie Casablanca. When Claude Rains needs to curry favor with the Nazis, he shuts down Rick's place. When asked why, he says he is shocked, SHOCKED, to find gambling going on. And at that moment an employee brings him a wad of cash, saying, "Here are your winnings, sir," to which he replies, "Thank you very much."

[Chris Alger]

This might be quibbling over terms, but I beleive the term "preemptive" strongly suggests that an attack of some sort is underway, planned or otherwise inevitable, or nearly so. When we speak of preemption, we imply that there's something in particular we intend to preempt.

There is no evidence that Iraq was contemplating an attack against the U.S. and a ton of evidence that it wasn't, for hte obvious reason that any such attack would have invited massive retalliation.

The war on Iraq is more aptly described as unprovoked aggression, not preemptive war.

[Chris Alger]

[ QUOTE ]
The thing that amazed me here at 2+2 was the tenacity with which those who disagreed with what I had to say insisted that there was no mendacity invovled in the government's claims leading up to the invasion of Iraq. What government has ever told the truth when going to war?


[/ QUOTE ]
Right. This gets back to the tabboo think I like to talk about. What's interesting is that when we accuse the U.S. of lying about war, all we're really doing is accusing the U.S. of acting like most other great powers, of doing the thing we would expect an entity like the U.S. to do. In fact, we would expect more of it in the U.S. given our "isolationist" heritage (which encompasses rational ideological anti-imperialism, not just the NIMBY attitude it connotes), which I think was what the Truman-Vandenburg dialogue was about. Americans generally oppose military action unless they're faced with a direct threat, whereas leaders are institutionally impelled to take action to protect long-term interests. One can view this as the difference between short-sided ordinary folks and visionary statesmen, or the difference between those that tend to pay the price for the war and those who don't but are more concerned with the interests of the beneficiaries. We can't discuss war along these lines, however, because to do so is always denounced as anti-Americanism.

The hypersensitive reaction you refer to boils down to a reaction against any suggestion that the U.S. is not exceptional, that it could be motivated by the same interests that motivate other countries. France's relationship to Iraq can be over oil profits, even "bribes," but our relationship can't even relate to power or wealth. If you attempt to speak rationally about tangible, concrete interests and goals, you're accused of "hating America."

This taboo against treating the U.S. like a normal country is the reason why you can rarely get a simple discussion together about weighing evidence that could justify war. It also explains why so many are so willing to accept the most absurd claims about the emergence, virtually overnight, of a "threat" from a country with no Navy or Air Force, unable for years to control nearly 40% of the land within its borders.