> http://www.normangeras.blogspot.com/2003_07_27
> _normangeras_archive.html#105948316257163866
What's maddening is that even with the shipping of captives abroad to be tortured and the open advocacy of torture by US pundits, opposition to torture is among the reasons to *support* the War on Terror. I think Gitmo betrays the place of human rights in the War on Terror. Human rights violations are a licence to invade, but human rights are not the standard with which the War on Terror will be conducted.
"And is it not true that, in a strictly homologous way, the liberal warriors are so eager to fight antidemocratic fundamentalism that they will end up discarding freedom and democracy themselves, if only they can fight terrorism? They have such a passion for proving that non-Christian fundamentalism is the main threat to freedom that they are ready to fall back on the position that we have to limit our own freedom here and now, in our allegedly Christian societies. If the 'terrorists' are ready to wreck this world for love of the other, our warriors on terrorism are ready to wreck their own democratic world out of hatred for the Muslim other. Alter and Dershowitz love human dignity so much that they are ready to legalize torture -- the ultimate degradation of human dignity -- to defend it."
-- Slavoj Zizek
The means contradict the professed ends, like the war in Iraq. Hoshyar Zubari of the KDP had one of the most memorable quotes during the war (quoted here from the Washington Post, March 27, 2003), "There is a difference between a war of liberation and a war of conquest. Liberation means Iraqis are at the forefront. Conquest means the invaders are in charge." At least David Rieff was forthright about what "humanitarian intervention" is: a war of conquest, and an unlikely means to democracy. National sovereignty is suspended for the toppling of a dictator, but the subjects of the intervention can hardly expect to regain it after the invasion, much less on their own terms. Better to say, without the pretence of democratization, that "Saddam was so bad, it's better for the Iraqis to be ruled by American forces."
But why the false dichotomy of Bush's war or no force against Saddam? Why not arm and back (with air support as well) the Kurds, Shi'ites, and, hell, even the Commies to oust Saddam as the anti-Stalinist socialist position? Because _the United States_ wouldn't do this, and you'd have to turn _elsewhere_ for the means??? No democratic imperialist, to my knowledge, ever answered Noam Chomsky's "modest proposal": let Iran do it. International law isn't a requirement anyway, Iran's national self-interests aren't any worse than America's, plus they've got a popular base in the country. Sarcastic, yes, but with a point...
-- Shane
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