[lit-ideas] Strange Death of Liberal America
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 23:00:40 -0700
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n18/judt01_.html
A lurker sent me the above article by Tony Judt, entitled "the Strange Death
of Liberal America." I have been annoyed by Lit-idears challenging me on
the use of the terms "Leftist," "Marxist," and "Liberal," but it took me a
minute to figure out who Tony Judt was talking about. He mentions some of
the Liberals I have praised, e.g., Paul Berman, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and
Christopher Hitchens, but there are more. He is appalled that they support
the war against Militant Islam. Oh yes, he says, they all think that Bush
hasn't fought it quite right, but they all think it should be fought.
I haven't read anything by Judt in a while, but I am surprised by this
article. Given what he is against, it would seem that he is for leaving the
Militant Islamists alone, or perhaps waiting until they attack us again and
simply do our best to defend ourselves against them. We need to guess, or
perhaps read some more of his recent articles.
He would clearly have left Saddam Hussein alone. Berman discusses that idea
at some length in his Terror and Liberalism. He doesn't feel one can call
himself a Liberal and want to have left Saddam in place. One has to embrace
a good deal of realpolitik to leave Saddam in place in order to be a
counterweight to Iran. It implies that we Liberals can accept his brutality
and his ruthlessness as long as he keeps the Iranian Mullahs in check. This
would also assume that we knew beyond doubt that he did not have WMDs, and
since no one else seemed to know that it is hard to imagine our knowing it.
It would also assume that we didn't care whether we got Saudi Arabia's help
in opposing Al Quaeda, and at the time we were worried about the possibility
of Al Quaeda having some suitcase bombs; so we were rather desperate to get
Saudi cooperation which we weren't going to get because the Saudis at the
time were more afraid of Saddam then they were of us [This from George
Friedman of Stratfor]. It also assumes that we would be willing to let
France thwart us in the Security Council in order for them to support Saddam
(which they made a not so secret deal to do), etc etc.
I watched part of a CSPAN2 program in which Pat Buchanan was describing his
new book, State of Emergency, The Third World Invasion and Conquest of
America. In the Q&A period someone asked him about his support for the
Vietnam War. He admitted that he supported going to Vietnam and supported
the war all the way to its end. He said that if he knew how things were
going to turn out he wouldn't have supported it, but he remembers vividly
what was known at the time and said that given the information he had
available at the time, he would make the same decision all over again.
Given the information about Saddam and Iraq that we had at the time, it
would be difficult to oppose the invasion. Don't forget also that we and
the British were flying daily over Iraq to keep Saddam from attacking the
Kurds. And he was regularly firing at our planes. How long could we keep
doing that? I don't know.
Consider a counter-factual: I'm capable of entertaining a realpolitik
position, but it is difficult to imagine turning Saddam loose. He was
angling to get the sanctions removed. France and Russia were helping him,
and we know from Iraqi scientists we questioned that he was very interested
in having WMDs. Some of them thought he did have them. I'm not sure what
realpolitik stance we could have taken with him to assure that he wasn't
going to go after WMDs. He was misusing the Oil for Food money. We knew
that and many thought he was using some of this money for WMDs. He was a
mess and simplistic stances like that of Tony Judt don't seem very helpful.
Lawrence
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