> How it is that you can, no matter what I wrote at the time and have
> since clarified several times, insist that I have somehow been
> moralizing on the issue.
For the record, I understood your argument, and so did others, I assume (including Justin, I think, upon re-reading your postings).
One difficulty we face in thinking about nuances (which you speak of in another post) is that the concept of responsibility is so very tied up with the language of morality based upon individualism in a society we live in that what we think of as moral arguments can get taken as "moralizing" when our intentions are not as such. If only people could think of responsibility as matters not of blame but of realizing their own power to change (e.g., soldiers' power to quit), based upon leverages, small or large, afforded by our places in the structure of production and reproduction. . . .
Another difficulty is the conflict between short-term tactics and long-term strategy. Our short-term interest (in the US -- it would be a bit different in Canada or Japan or elsewhere) is to concentrate responsibility for the Iraq War on a few at the top (namely the Bush administration and those who voted for the war in Congress and their paymasters) and (hopefully) let them -- or as many of them as possible -- take the fall. Our long-term interest is to encourage people to think about our own roles -- including moral responsibilities -- in maintaining a society like this one that makes a war of aggression possible.
Yet another difficulty is what I would call "the Vietnam Syndrome on the Left." The Right's Vietnam Syndrome is their difficulty of maintaining support for war, reinstating the draft, etc. The Left's Vietnam Syndrome is our fear of being misrepresented as ones who "spit on veterans" (even though it is proven to be a myth that anti- war activists literally spat on veterans and it is not our intention to do such a thing, even figuratively). The fear can make the way leftists speak about soldiers Pollyannaish and motivate leftists to put soldiers on a pedestal or at least beyond the realm of any responsibility, whereas to respect soldiers as human beings involves not underestimating their potential capacity to think of their own power and responsibility.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>