Except that that's not what (this) modern war means, anymore than dulce et decorum est really ever represented the wars it was used to promote, although I'm sure it sounded more plausible in 100 BC than it did in 1914. Heard Michael Hardt last night at a local academic conference (after another anti-war rally here), he talked a bit on what's new with this war, focusing on the eroding distinction between war and peace. He identified that distinction itself as an innovation. (That is, the separation of war and politics--that the Clausewitz point is that they are *in principle* separate, not, as the quote is usually used, to lump them together.) Which distinction is being scrapped, with the newly permanent (hot) war, everywhere, with everyone a combatant.
ChrisD quoted:
>Keeping up fierce Russian
>criticism of the U.S. and British offensive, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
>said he expected Washington to seek retroactive approval for their action
>from the United Nations after Iraqi resistance had been crushed.
Hardt traced recent legitimations of war from 'international law' (Kuwait--to defend state sovereignty) then 'morality' (Kosovo--although in violation of state sovereignty) and now 'pre-emptive' war which is neither--to hell with sovereignty--and where the legitimation is apparently based on future results. Some legitimation, since it can't be disproved until it's too late.
Michael Pollak wrote:
>If shock and awe works -- if everyone gives up and almost nobody dies --
>it will be a tremendous thing for civilization. It will mean war is
>almost obsolete. If that's true, it's a wonderful thing.
Hmm, that's what they said about nukes, where almost everybody dies. (Although initially, with just the U.S. in possession of the A-bomb, it was suspected that it was not war but modern man that was obsolete.) But I'm with Carl Remick, the offer of Pax is not that appealing when coupled with the inescapable Americana.
The thing that's propaganda about this war is not that Saddam Hussein or anyone in Iraq *doesn't get it* that the U.S. could destroy their country (as in the argument that a demonstration bomb on an empty island would've induced the Japanese to surrender just as well as the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did). Instead, the political goals are the propaganda. The U.S. said, essentially, we're going to attack you no matter what--go ahead and disclose everything, let weapons inspectors tear around the country for months, destroy your tiny collection of missiles, let spy planes snoop, we don't give a shit because it's not about any of that. It's not even about removing your head of state, however despotic, see, cause your country is a shock and awe demonstration to the world.
Jenny Brown