Hitchens: Hawks in the dovecote

kjkhoo at softhome.net kjkhoo at softhome.net
Sun Aug 25 11:20:35 PDT 2002


Nathan Newman wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <kjkhoo at softhome.net>
> > Furthermore, I thought and think the basic issue at hand is American
>> foreign policy and the right of Washington to decide when "regime
>> change" is or is not needed, or desirable and when, or if, action
>> will be taken to effect it; if so, then realpolitik does come into
>> it.
>
>What "right"? This goes to the problems of left morality on these
>interventions-- because the US blocks intervention in many instances where
>justice would call for intervention, the Left then demands that there be no
>intervention when US self-interest coincides with just intervention (read
>Kosovo in my view). This demand for symmetry in lack of justice is not a
>morally tenable position.
>
>I have more sympathy for Hitchens approach on this issue than most of the
>left, since he calls for intervention where it is just, then highlights the
>ciminal behavior of the US when it has failed to support similar
>intervention where it was equally just on similar terms.
>
>I don't agree with his enthusiastic support for intervention in the
>abstract, largely because the consequences would likely be a nasty internal
>factional war that might be worse than Saddam, but that is separate from the
>moral analysis where I think he is more correct than much of the peace
>left.What the Iraqi and Kurdish democrats would like is American aid for and
>endorsement of their own efforts to replace the regime. And what they fear
>is what I also fear - a heavy-handed US attack which results in an Iraqi
>puppet government that is designed to placate the Saudis and the Turks.
>That, it seems to me, is where a principled critique of the war-planning
>might begin. But it's depressing to see the status quo Left preferring to
>parrot the arguments of pacifist realpolitik.

First of all, I am not American. And if I were, given what I've been seeing and reading, looking in as through a glass darkly, I'm not sure I'd want to be of the American Left -- which of course does not at all mean I'd want to be of the American Right. I guess I'd just want to be free of both the American Left and Right.

Secondly, what is this about a case-by-case approach? Indeed, what is this about "the US blocks intervention...". Specifically, in the case of Iraq, and particularly in the context of the Iraq-Iran war/massacre, the US was an active partner -- on Iraq and Saddam Hussein's side. Hardly a case of blocking intervention. The US intervenes precisely when it thinks its self-interest is involved, and then cloaks it in some just intervention argument. How often has it been when the US blocks attempted, even ham-fisted UN intervention, and then commandeers the UN to cloak its own desired interventions?

But really, a case-by-case approach might just be the surest path to hell at this juncture of history. I think -- and do prove me wrong -- that by now there are sufficient grounds to view the matter in a context, and to refuse the context in the name of case-by-case is to refuse to see the forest for the trees. One could write a history of British imperialism using a case-by-case approach and argument for and against British intervention, even show how in such-and-such a case British intervention even did some good -- and in the process make British imperialism disappear.

Incidentally, I have no problem with intervention, but I do have a serious problem with intervention when the US desires it, and no intervention when it doesn't, even when many, perhaps most, of the rest of the world does: which further adds to the context in which I'd assess matters. Living where I do, I guess East Timor, uncontroversially, comes to mind, and, more controversially, Cambodia.

kj khoo



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