[lbo-talk] Honor and Self-Respect

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

After Falluja, Najaf, and Abu Ghraib, one conservative pundit after 
another has begun to publish chastened reassessments of the invasion 
and occupation of Iraq (for a survey of hawks' second thoughts, see 
John Tierney, "The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts," New 
York Times, May 16, 2004). One of them is David Brooks. On one hand, 
Brooks is a good example that even the hawks having second thoughts 
about Iraq still cling to one of the core tenets of American 
imperialism -- America has a noble purpose of helping others: "We 
were so sure we were using our might for noble purposes, we assumed 
that sooner or later, everybody else would see that as well. Far from 
being blinded by greed, we were blinded by idealism. . . . We didn't 
understand the tragic irony that our power is also our weakness. As 
long as we seemed so mighty, others, even those we were aiming to 
assist, were bound to revolt" ("For Iraqis to Win, the U.S. Must 
Lose," New York Times, May 11, 2004). Though Brooks now understands 
the idea that "We were going to topple Saddam, establish democracy 
and hand the country back to grateful Iraqis. We expected to be 
universally admired when it was all over" was "a childish fantasy," 
he will never give up the more enduring childish fantasy that 
Americans across classes and races constitute the national "we" who 
have shared national interests at home and missions abroad, all 
motivated by "idealism." That is to be expected. What is interesting, 
however, is that Brooks' column points to crucial concepts that 
liberals (and even most leftists) in the United States appear 
incapable of understanding -- honor and self-respect:

They [the Iraqis] would do so [revolt against the occupier] for their 
own self-respect. In taking out Saddam, we robbed the Iraqis of the 
honor of liberating themselves. The fact that they had no means to do 
so is beside the point.

Now, looking ahead, we face another irony. To earn their own freedom, 
the Iraqis need a victory. And since it is too late for the Iraqis to 
have a victory over Saddam, it is imperative that they have a victory 
over us. If the future textbooks of a free Iraq get written, the 
toppling of Saddam will be vaguely mentioned in one clause in one 
sentence. But the heroic Iraqi resistance against the American 
occupation will be lavishly described, page after page. For us to 
succeed in Iraq, we have to lose. (emphasis added, May 11, 2004)

The only sort of honor and self-respect that American liberals (and 
most American leftists) seem to care about is the feelings of honor 
and self-respect concerning masculinity that may motivate some Arab 
men, as they fret about the pictures of American women humiliating 
Iraqi men and worry over the prevalence of "honor killings" in the 
Middle East (whose similarity to and difference from what is called 
"domestic violence" or more euphemistically "crimes of passion" in 
the rest of the world are seldom explored -- another instance of 
orientalism). Try to find the idea that the US power elite "robbed 
the Iraqis of the honor of liberating themselves" and that the very 
fact of foreign occupation itself -- even without rape, torture, 
deliberate and accidental killings of unarmed civilians, raids, 
checkpoints, indefinite detentions, economic hardships -- is an 
affront to any self-respecting Iraqi in the voluminous scribblings of 
American liberals and leftists who are busy coming up with 
harebrained schemes of enlisting the United Nations, the Arab League, 
and whatnot to "maintain stability" in Iraq (e.g., Phyllis Bennis, 
"The withdrawal of the U.S. military should be paralleled by the 
entry to Iraq of an independent UN mission, backed by the Arab 
League, to provide political assistance in arranging elections, 
humanitarian assistance, and a peacekeeping contingent to maintain 
stability while Iraq is reclaiming its sovereignty. While the 
election process is underway, UN and Arab League troops should 
immediately work to restore the capacity of the Iraqi security forces 
to provide security under the authority of the new legitimate 
government as it comes into existence" ["Democracy and Occupation," 
ZNet, November 18, 2003]). You'll be looking for a long time in vain.

<http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/05/honor-and-self-respect.html>
-- 
Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
* Calendars of Events in Columbus: 
<http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, 
<http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>