[lit-ideas] Solving problems with wars
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2008 11:17:04 -0800
Eric Dean has written a lengthy and energetic response to my ridiculing of
the Mitchum statement "Wars never solve anything. History tells us that."
I can't incorporate his long note here without going way over Lit-Ideas
"generous" allowance, but I will pick out some salient features and comment.
Dean writes, "I do disagree with the overall position I took Lawrence to be
expressing, specifically that it is counter to our national interest to say
that war is futile. I may be doing Lawrence an injustice in paraphrasing
him that way, and if so I would be happy to be corrected on that score."
I can see now why I thought Dean's response inadequate. I had nothing so
broad in mind when I ridiculed Mitchum's oft repeated nonsensical maxim
"wars never solve anything." It made no sense to me before Dean's note and
none, after it. His paraphrase isn't a paraphrase. It goes off some place I
never intended. The maxim doesn't make sense. War isn't a "problem" to be
solved. Neither is it a "problem" that can't be solved. Problem and
solution do not apply to War as far as far as I can see and Dean's note does
not present an argument that would change or even defend that position that
I can see.
Dean picks a definition of "solve" that seems promising to him, namely not a
"problem" to be solved but a "question to be answered." Does anyone have
that in mind when they say "Wars never solve anything?" I don't think so.
That would be like saying Wars answer no questions and we know countless
questions are answered as results of wars.
Dean then moves to a definition he likes better, namely that wars resolve
situations that present complexity of difficulty. Once again, does anyone
really think people who say "wars never solve anything" have that in mind?
I don't believe so, but if anyone does then the answer is yes. The
mistreatment by the British prior to our Revolutionary War was a complexity
of sorts that was resolved by their defeat. One can couch the Civil War in
such a way as to say that the South presented a complexity or difficulty.
Did the Civil War resolve that situation? Absolutely. The lovers of the
"wars never solve anything" maxim aren't looking for a "yes they do" answer
so we must reject this cleverly constructed attempt to make sense of it.
Dean summarizes by saying, and approving of saying "wars never solve
anything" means "wars do not resolve the overall political situations in the
ways their instigators would like." Does he think that's what Mitchum
means at the end of Anzio? The Second World War was a long way from being
over and it isn't at all clear that Mitchum is referring to the instigators.
He is speaking like Geary of the Geary-Platonic form War it seems to me. He
is as critical of the allies as he is of the axis. If he was intending
something more practical and really meant: those who start wars never have
things turn out as they expect, that too would be false. Because sometimes
things turn out exactly as the instigators intend. The First Gulf War went
tickity boo. So did the Afghan War. Moving back in time a great number of
wars went exactly as the initiator intended. Empires became empires because
their wars went just as planned. If Mitchum had said, "sometimes wars don't
turn out as planned," meaning that the Germans were losing, well . . . but
that wouldn't make sense because the Americans did poorly at Anzio and he
was mouthing his "wars never solve anything" to the general who had done so
poorly he was being removed from command.
Dean spends too much time on the Iraq war and of gives evidence of accepting
the popular views contained in the popular press. There were a great number
of reasons for going to war against Iraq. I discussed many of them after
reading The Threatening Storm, The Case for Invading Iraq by Pollack. He
wrote this and I read it before we invaded Iraq the second time. What Dean
writes doesn't adequately cover the many reasons for invading Iraq (e.g.,
Iraq broke the truce, violated agreements, fired continuously on our planes,
threatened neighbors and vowed to build up its war machine so it could
continue its aggressive ways).
Dean's analysis also doesn't take cognizance of what the intelligence guru,
George Friedman wrote in American's Secret War, Inside the hidden worldwide
struggle between America and its enemies. Saddam Hussein argued that he had
defeated America in the first gulf war. He intimidated Iraq's neighbors
right at the time America needed support in going after Al Quaeda. Saudi
Arabia, whose support was critical was not forthcoming because it feared
Saddam Hussein more than it did America - for hadn't Saddam scared America
away at Baghdad?
So let's trot out Michum's maxim once again. Was there a problem to be
solved by going to war against Saddam Hussein? He presented a "problem" for
us by invading Kuwait, encouraging terrorism, shooting at our airplanes,
intimidating our allies, disrupting the region and vowing to become the
superpower of the region. Did we solve those problems by dealing with
Saddam in a second invasion? Absolutely.
Dean writes ". . . the Islamists (whom I do not confuse with the Baathists
but include here because it's their murderous actions the war was supposed
to help control) still hated the west, i.e., they retained that 'position.'"
I don't understand why Dean bothers to say this. The Islamists are by
definition haters of the West. Their ideology is derived from the writings
and teachings of Sayyid Qutb and hatred of the West is part of it. The
Shiite counterpart to Qutb, Ruhollah Khomeini, was also a hater of the west.
The Islamist ideology involves the ultimate conquering of the West and the
entire world - It is the revitalizing of Mohammad's Jihad. War is
probably not going to change the opinion of an Islamist, but if we defeat
the Islamists in war then fewer will be attracted to that malignant
ideology.
Dean in his penultimate paragraph writes "in any case, my point here is NOT
to argue for an interpretation of the Iraq War, but rather to illustrate how
I'd used the term 'position.'" Well, okay than my intention was not to
disagree with his interpretation of the Iraq war . . . I am being a bit
snide here, but that's the truth. Since he mentioned it I expanded it in
accordance with complexities I had resolved by my studies but it wasn't a
primary concern in regard to this subject. I had solved the mystery
presented by the problem of the invasion - or at least approached the
solution more closely than the simplistic popular press was able or willing
or desirous of doing.
I don't think Dean's use of "position" is any more defensible than "Wars
Never Solve Anything," but at least his "position" hasn't been turned into a
maxim.
And as long as we're on this subject, some readers might be interested in
buying a tee shirt from the Sharon Hughes website:
War has never solved anything
except for creating the United States
and for ending
slavery
Genocide
Fascism
Nazism
and a few other 'unpleasant' institutions and regimes
You can get the t-shirt here. <http://www.freedomstone.com/> From Freedom
Stone:
http://changingworldviews.blogspot.com/2005/09/point-to-ponder-war-has-never
-solved.html
Lawrence Helm
San Jacinto
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