Hitchens: Hawks in the dovecote

[kjkhoo at softhome.net]

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