----- Original Message ----- From: "Max Sawicky" <sawicky at bellatlantic.net>
>the Bushies have to be very pleased with the progress of the
>war at this point. It's hasn't gone quite the direction they might
>have hoped -- there is little progress towards a coalition government,
>and Pashtun participation is nowhere is sight, but forcing the enemy
>into the hills is certainly preferable to letting them run cities, possess
>heavy equipment, and operate from military bases.
Mass bombing always has the ability to destroy control of modern cities-- hell, two crashed airliners threw the whole United States into terror. But control of the country is based on deeper political successes and those have so far been largely complete failures for the Bushies.
The war is fought for political goals-- winning the war (in the dominance of cities, a foregone conclusion) is useless without gaining those political goals. This is the idiocy of war - started for particular purposes, it becomes an end unto itself to the point of forgetting the original goal.
Politically, the war has alienated large numbers of muslims who were largely sympathetic to us right after S11. By that political measure, the war has been a steady loss and the political casualties continue to mount.
>Most clear in all this is that, diverse radical ideologies notwithstanding,
>the pacifist impulse runs very deep here. The worst problem in this regard
>is not the impulse itself, which has its own respectable philosophical
>basis, but the apparent lack of awareness of it.
I have little pacificist impulse, other than the pragmatic view that violence is an uncertain and usually wayward tool in pursuing most political objectives. Where war can achieve just ends, I support it. But most of the time, it fails miserably with unexpected consequences that come back to bite you later. Hate breeds hate, violence breeds violence -- not always but consistently enough to make me cautious in its deployment.
I think the moralism of some antiwar folks is misguided in failing to engage supporters of the war with an honest appreciation of the justice of their anger. The motives are not immoral, but the results are unlikely to match the stated goals. Which leaves a wide realm of honest disagreement on pursuit of the war as a useful way to prevent mass murder like S11.
-- Nathan Newman