> LRB (Vol. 25 No. 5)
>
> Casuistries of Peace and War
>
> Perry Anderson on the assumptions the Bush Administration and
> its critics share
Anderson is given to pessimism, but his list of "mainstream" assumptions about the war clarified something for me. I recall that when anti-war liberals lament "anti-Americanism" in the anti-war movement, they often single out opposition to the economic sanctions and reject their impact on Iraq. Rejecting US culpability for this seems to be one of the preconditions to be cleared of "anti-Americanism", as charged by the Gitlin-types. It's stunts like that that preserve the prevailing assumptions Anderson is going after. Frankly, I suspect that's what the campaigns of de-anti-Americanization are about: defending casuistries.
The charge of "anti-Americanism", in common US usage, is like the result of an ideological audit. You're positions on US foreign policy are collected and entered to a ledger. Criticism and opposition are debits, and acceptance and support are credits. If you run up a negative balance, you're anti-American.
-- Shane
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