[lit-ideas] Re: Victor Hanson in Iraq
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 06:11:21 -0600
Lawrence wants to know: do I suffer from Liberal Guilt over the treatment of
Native Americans? No. At least I don't feel personally culpable for the
crimes committed by the Europeans and the U. S. Government against the American
Indians. However, I do recognize those crimes as crimes that at times crossed
the border into genocide and feel a responsibility as a member of the community
to work towards a society that will not let such crimes happen again. Do I
feel guilt over the plight of African Americans? To some degree yes. I have
copies of the deeding of slaves by my great great grandfather to my great
grandfather. My immediate ancestors owned human beings. I don't own any human
beings, not outright, but I do own a privilege over many human beings -- that
is, the immense, almost insurmountable advantage that my white skin gives me
over black skinned people in America, especially in the South where racism is
still pervasive and deeply embedded. I do feel a kind of guilt about that,
probably because, despite all my beliefs, I recognize racist reactions in
myself from time to time and it appalls me. But all I can do about it is work
toward greater social justice. The severe social and economic disadvantages
accruing from 300 years of radical cultural displacement and disenfranchisement
justify such extraordinary measures as racial quotas and economic retribution,
or so I believe -- there's your Liberal Guilt at work! Now if one were to
describe Liberal Guilt, not as feelings of personal culpability, but as the
recognition of crimes committed by one's ethnic group or ancestors and the
resolve to work towards a society that will not permit such crimes again, then
yes, I suffer from Liberal Guilt. My question is, why doesn't everyone?
The rest of Lawrence's post rehashes topics hashed through a thousand times
before without any perceptible change of mind on anyone's part. I don't have
the patience for any "did too -- did not" this morning.
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 11:02 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Victor Hanson in Iraq
Mike:
Opposing America's interests and favoring the interests of America's enemies
isn't all the Left does. Zinn illustrate one of the other popular ideas
advocated by the Left, namely that death trumps right and wrong. Zinn is in an
impossible position in wanting to try Bush because he has no coherent standard
of right and wrong against which to judge him. If people die, he thinks it is
bad, evil even, and to entertain the expectation that wars can be conducted
without casualties, or without non-combatant casualties is not something any
nation in the world can meet. If we are attacked by the Japanese on December
7th, then it is right for us to go to war and defeat them. Defeating them
involves killing them until they surrender. That is the nature of war. Zinn
doesn't seem to know that, or else because he was a bombardier in WWII and
feels guilt of some sort, he doesn't want to know that. He thinks that if you
kill the enemy then you become culpable. When pushed he says that unless you
can kill only combatants and no non-combatants you are culpable, but the nature
of war is such that his ideal is impossible. This would mean that no war could
be fought using his standard; which is sanctimonious piffle because wars have
always been fought and will continue to be fought despite the whining of Howard
Zinn and his ilk. Our technology is such that we kill fewer noncombatants than
in the past and we today kill fewer than any other modern-day army, but we
cannot promise to kill none. The fact that we cannot so promise does not tie
our hands. That is, it does not render us powerless, because the nature of war
has always been that some non-combatants will be killed, and we and the rest of
the world accept that.
Consider one of the Leftist sacred cows: the American Indians. Leftists like
Zinn and Ward Churchill blame Americans of today for what the Europeans and
colonists did in the early years of our nation. Let me pick a Lit-Idear at
random and pose the question to him: Mike, do you feel guilty there in
Tennessee for what your ancestors did to the Indians? Well, maybe you don't
know what your ancestors did to the Indians, or vice versa. I don't know about
mine. My ancestors stretch back quite a long way in this nation but I have no
idea how any of them related to the Indians. I grew up hearing about one of my
ancestors coming across with his family in a covered wagon and along the way
acquiring a young Indian lady in some unknown manner and marrying her. My
mother swears that she saw her Indian grandmother sitting cross-legged on the
floor in Indian garb. My daughter, the genealogist, however says the supposed
Indian doesn't seem to be an Indian after all, but who knows?
Considering this as a philosophical or perhaps a psychological question, is
it possible to feel Ward-Churchill-type guilt for something you have no
knowledge of? For all I know, all of my ancestors came off second best in
confrontations with the Indians -- assuming there were any.
Zinn and Churchill would be better off attempting to understand the nature of
world civilization at the time the Colonists were confronting and being
confronted by the Indians. Were the other Civilizations worse or better than
the Europeans in America? The West had certain popular opinions and prejudices
and the early Americans were no different from Europeans at that time since
most of them were Europeans. Was Europe ahead of or behind other Civilizations
such that others might have treated the American Indians more benignly had they
rather than Europeans been moving West? I know of no evidence to suggest that
other Civilizations or even non-Anglo-Saxon Western nations would have done
better in Howard Zinn's terms. So get over it Howard. Get over it Ward.
There is no one left to blame. They are all dead, and if you find anyone alive
today who wants to accept that sort of blame, keep away from him because he is
obviously nuts.
And give up on Iraq, Mike. Saddam started everything by invading Kuwait.
That war was never over; so Bush Jr couldn't start something that was never
ended. There was a truce and as part of it we, the British and Americans,
overflow Iraq to keep Saddam and his army from killing the Kurds and Shiites.
This is the Saddam who frothed at the mouth to get at the Kurds in the North
and Shiites in the South. This is the Saddam whom the Leftists wring their
hands over: such a gentle soul and so put upon by the evil murdering Americans.
He fired upon American and British Airplanes regularly. Was that an act of
aggression? Shoot, it sounds like aggression to me, but I don't wring my hands
over such matters and so am probably not qualified to judge. And then there
were a series of UN resolutions issued to force Saddam to comply with
inspection requirements which he refused to do. He violated these
requirements. And then the UN in typical wishy-washy fashion refused to
enforce its resolutions. In the aftermath of 9/11 Bush wasn't willing to sit
still for that, and we now know that France and Russia promised Saddam that
they would thwart America's efforts to get UN approval for enforcing the UN
resolutions. Well, that worked just the way they intended. Is this what you
want to punish Bush for? Well, good luck.
As to "murder," you've got to lay any murders at Saddam's feet. He was the
murderer. But if you mean the Zinn sort of opposition to killing any
non-combatants whatsoever, well gee whiz. Tough. See paragraph one above.
Saddam had been looking for trouble for a good long time and wasn't going to be
happy until he found it. All who worked closely with him testify to that.
Saddam and his WMDs is a real hoot. Everyone in the world believed he had
them. The UN resolutions were to enable inspectors to get in there to see
whether he had them or not, but he wasn't cooperating. Why wasn't he
cooperating? Everyone thought he had something to hide. We learned after the
fact that he didn't want others in the Middle East to believe he had no WMDs
because that would involve a loss of face. Well, Whooops Saddam. You sure had
us fooled. I guess the joke was on us.
As to whether the Bush administration did well or poorly in combating Al
Quaeda and militant Islam, I think they did fairly well. Given the Militant
Islamic vaunted chutzpa, taking Afghanistan wouldn't have been enough, but
cowing Saddam on top of Afghanistan was enough (see Bowman's Honor for the
development of this argument). What nation after that will attack or challenge
America in quite that way? Whoops, I forgot, the Democrats are going to get
elected in 2008 -- all bets are off. Osama will be watching those elections
with extreme interests and if a Democrat is elected president as I think she
will be: Happy days are here again!
Lawrence
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