Such turns are perhaps inevitable. I take it as a self-evident truism that, within mainstream political punditry, it is far more disqualifying to be opposed to all wars than it is to be in favor of all wars. People will say that, of course, peace is preferable to war, but in practice, you can support all wars (which you will not fight in) and consistently fail upwards, and find yourself in the warm embrace of DC insider cliquishness; there are few stances that could more quickly extinguish your credibility within that sphere than to oppose all wars in practice. Meanwhile, due to the necessary anxiety of constantly advocating military action from the safety of a Macbook, and the inherent tension of the penis anxiety school of cruise missile liberalism, liberal hawks seem literally incapable of pushing for war without resorting to the usual redbaiting.
I wanted to highlight an email to the Daily Dish. Given that blog's frequent references to Orwell, I thought this was a rather priceless bit of "war is peace"-style Orwellian language:
If the Libya intervention works as intended, this is it. "It" being the end of the neocon-Bush doctrine. This is the moment the Al Qaeda "narrative" is first dealt its death blow. This is the moment America turns the page on 10 years of insanity. This is the moment of "change" we all voted for, with dividends for years and decades to come.Aside from the deepening cult of personality that envelopes Obama-- I have read many pro-war arguments that literally amount to no more than "I trust Obama!"-- and the attendant "you must support Obama" social pressures, this email reflects peoples ability to reconcile any gulf, no matter how wide, between reality and their beliefs. This emailer wants me to take seriously that the Libyan aggression represents a break from Bush-era foreign policy. That is, military aggression against an oil-rich Middle Eastern country launched for dubious humanitarian and world-policing reasons with no exit strategy or any consideration of what postwar society will resemble, undertaken with the understanding that America's inexhaustible skill, wisdom, and benevolence will result in superior outcomes for a foreign people, represents a break from the Bush tradition. Why? Because of hope and change. Because Obama is just that great of a guy. Because trust him.
The important part of this email, though, reflects the general tenor of the conversation: that, somehow, this latest action will be the last one. That, after this, we get out of the sheriff business. And what I want to tell you is: we will continue to do this, over and over again, and every bit of historical evidence supports me. Look at the last several decades; we intervene again and again and again, bringing weaponry to bear wherever and whenever we please, providing our bountiful justice for more and more of the world's people. Look at the recent history; what possible argument can be made that this behavior will not continue? There is no such argument. We've just endured a series of events that should have made intervention in an internal conflict in a Middle Eastern nation harder than at any other time; we jumped into a Libyan civil war without even talking about it. Your country is in the world policing business, and the continuing canard that this intervention represents some sort of a unique one-off or a last dance is fraudulent on its face.
When those opposed to this intervention mention conflicts such as Darfur, Yemen, Syria, or Cote D'ivoire, I grow nervous; those are all on the checklist of those who, like Nicholas Kristof and Samantha Power, embrace White Man's Burden with a zeal that suggests they skipped the 20th century altogether. If you think that this is a last hurrah; if you think that all of the foreign interventions in recent history are anomalies; if you think that we won't be projecting our military power around the globe in five years or ten or fifteen-- well, I think you're wrong. It's time for those in favor of war in Libya to confront the broader project for which they are laboring.
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Of course, that would mean admitting that we live in an oligarchic empire rather than a peace-loving democracy. Aren't these political insiders pretty much being paid to deny the obvious, to insist that the world works differently than it does? If even the election of Obama was meaningless in terms of military aggression, should we bother reading Politico to find out what might happen next?
The ghost of President Woodrow Wilson returns.
When I think about these interventions I often think of that Monbiot column where he argues that much of rich countries' prosperity stems basically from our appropriating the rest of the world's resources to ourselves, and then I think, If that's true, I like my prosperity -- I like most of what oil did for us barring climate change! -- so shouldn't I support the interventions?
Sure, in the same way that a burglar that steals your money supports burglary.
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