...I think.
A shift has been occurring in my thinking over the last year, and it is one which I have only recently managed to quantify or describe--if only to myself.
Regular readers--all four of you--will no doubt have noticed that I haven't blogged for a while. It's certainly not for lack of time anymore; I work third shift in a NOC where I have roughly ten hours a night to vent my spleen in any way I choose. Nor is it for lack of news--the misadventures of the Bush administration and the eventfulness of the world provide no end of potential fodder.
No, the biggest reason is this: I have been undergoing an ideological crisis, questioning a great many of my assumptions and forcing myself to rethink cherished positions in the interests of intellectual honesty. And while this would seem to be great blogging fodder, the truth is that I haven't felt like subjecting myself to the kind of flogging that people like Andrew Sullivan get when they agonize publicly over their dearly-held beliefs.
I have long been a staunch liberal, pretty much across the board. In many ways, I still am, and that's unlikely to change: I'm extremely socially liberal (chances are my private life would curl your shorthairs and scorch your eyes), take a fairly dim view of organized religion, believe strongly in the right of gays to marry, and think that there is much good the government can accomplish that the private sector cannot or will not. I'm still outraged over Bush's theft of the 2000 election and scandalized that so many of the key players go unpunished. And I still find George W Bush to be the most abhorrent and dangerous American president in my lifetime, for reasons too many to enumerate.
But valid as I believe many of those reasons to be, I have become increasingly fed up with the dogged stupidity and partisan blindness of the reactionary left. It's not as if there's not a commeasurate amount of stupidity on the right--it's just that the left's stupidity is beginning to irritate me more because it undermines the credibility of things I hold dear, and threatens the security of the United States as much as the willful ignorance evident in Bush's policies.
The fact that something comes out of Bush's mouth or benefits Bush's re-election chances does not make it de facto wrong, but you wouldn't know that to listen to so much of the blogging left. Every setback in Iraq, every example of Muslim persecution, every bomb that goes off in a market is held up and trumpeted almost triumphantly, as if the fact that people dying and Iraq's continued slide into the next Afghanistan were a good thing simply because it vindicates their opinions of Bush and their predictions about what a colossal foxtrot-uniform invading Iraq would turn out to be.
I will name no names. This is not a callout to specific players on the left, nor am I interested in burning my bridges. I realize that some are genuinely trying to report the news that they find, and don't take any special glee in digging up yet another example of how Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket. But for those who have ever felt that twinge of "yay!" when you see something going wrong in Iraq because you realize it hurts Bush's re-election numbers--and for chrissake, be honest, how many of you haven't?--re-think your priorities, and be ashamed. I have, and I am.
I have long been a strong advocate for international law and institutions, and idealistically, I still am: I believe that civilized countries work best within a framework of multilateral cooperation, and that agreed-upon standards of civilized and lawful conduct between nations are a necessary ingredient for world stability and peace.
But much as my liberal idealism compels me to strive for the achievement of that aim, I have a strong streak of realism that has finally demanded I acknowledge uncomfortable truths: that uncivilized nations and stateless actors will not feel compelled to act within the constraints which civilized peoples have laid out for themselves. It has always seemed self-evident to me that gun control is of limited utility when criminals will always find a way to acquire banned weapons--why, then, do we suppose states and individuals inclined towards criminal acts on the international stage will be swayed by anything less than the credible threat of enforcement?
I speak here, mainly, of the United Nations Security Council, and of its rapidly dwindling relevance to ensuring safety and peace in the world. I speak from the heart here when I say that many on the left seem to regard the UN Charter as some sort of holy text, equal to the Constitution--and that the will of the UN and the conclusions of the Security Council are the first and last word on right and wrong in the conduct of nations. I've been guilty of this, too: I once wrote a long treatise on why the Iraq War was in violation of international law.
There are many reasonable arguments that can be made against the decision to invade Iraq, and there was indeed a campaign of relentless dishonesty on the part of the Bush administration in their attempts to sell it to the American people. But for those who think "international law" or the existence or wording UNSC resolutions are a serious argument for or against taking action, put it to the Clinton test: how did you feel about Bosnia? Rwanda? Considering the ability of any veto-wielding country to shut down a resolution authorizing action contrary to their own narrow interests, and given the historical abuse of that veto by Russia, France, and the US to do just that, is the question of whether or not the use of military force is authorized by the UN truly a serious argument as to whether or not force should be used?
One would think the lessons of Rwanda and Bosnia would teach us otherwise.
Do not misunderstand: I am not advocating wholesale disregard for international law and treaty, nor am I defending the kind of hamfisted thuggery that it pleases the Bush administration to call "diplomacy". But when thousands of people are dying in wholesale slaughter, or an unstable regime poses a direct and unequivocal threat to our security, we must be able to say to the world: "We want to work with you, but we cannot stand by and do nothing."
It is through these and many other thoughts that I've come to an uncomfortable realization: I'm starting to drift, ideologically, into the territory of those I once disparagingly referred to as "neoconservatives". On fiscal policy, I'm pretty much right in the center: I tend to think government should stay out of the lives of the people as much as possibile, but I think there are things that the private sector is unable to do as well, or (as in the case of business and corporate regulatory policy) unwilling to do in a way beneficial to the whole. I am, as I pointed out above (and as anyone who knows me will attest) extremely socially liberal. But over time I've been drifting further and further rightward into hawkish territory on foreign policy. I'm not sold on the wisdom or morality of toppling regimes to achieve geopolitical advantage (we have a fairly dismal track record at that), but I do think there is truth to the notion that democratization in the Middle East will produce salutory results in terms of our security, is necessary in order to remedy the social and cultural conditions that allow Islamist terrorism to flourish, and is ultimately the morally right thing to do. And there is plenty of room for discussion and disagreement about the proper means for doing so.
More to come as I continue to think this through. This is an ongoing process.
Posted by Catsy at 05:48 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack (2)I don't quite get this post Catsy. Are you changing your opinion because all those nasty liberals say bad things about President Bush? Will you change it back once you find your new mates are kind of nasty themselves and say all kinds of nasty things about John Kerry?
You are acting like there's no such thing as a liberal hawk. Or a centrist Democrat. But so what. Maybe you've found a new perspective. And now you've become a neo-con - at the very time its main tenets have been debunked - maybe you can tell me; just what do you guys think you're trying to accomplish in Iraq? And why wasn't important to accomplish it first in Afganistan?
Posted by: fabius at August 18, 2004 05:05 AMSounds as if you're coming to the place where all Americans ought to be, Catsy: that place where you think for yourself, and evaluate situations outside of the context of merely what they might mean for political advantage. And yes, there's no shortage of idiocy over on the fringe right. Welcome to the real world, where craziness knows no bounds.
Good thinking. I've always valued your comments over at OW, even though I don't always agree. I think this is more a shift in the way you see yourself, than a shift in your political point of view. Am I right?
Posted by: Slartibartfast at August 18, 2004 06:15 AMI'm still figuring it out.
Not to get all Zen-like, but that's life. It's when you think you've got it all figured out that you're in trouble.
Posted by: Slartibartfast at August 18, 2004 08:03 AMIt sounds like you're drifting into the idea of supporting pre-emptive or preventitive wars. Such wars are a "main tenet" of neoconism, and I think that's what fabius was referring to when he said the main tenet was being debunked.
If a case can be made for non-provoked war -- and one can be: witness Bosnia/Kosovo, as you point out - such a case needs to be made very carefully. ANY war has to be carefully planned and honestly justified: this is especially, toweringly, true for a non-provoked war.
The Iraq mess fails that test egregiously.
This is important, because it was not a fluke, not bad luck, not the result of a lot of unforseen circumstancs. The Iraq war -- from its "marketing" to its execution -- was done entirely as neo-cons wanted it to be done. Neo-cons picked the target. Neo-cons did the planning. And, above all, neo-cons still refuse to admit they made any errors. Which means, if the opportunity arises, they'll do it all over again -- maybe against Iran, or Syria, or some Evil Doer to be named later.
To be a neo-con, as to be ANY ideologue, requires having a closed mind. I'm sorry, but it really does. Being an ideologue means, by definition, believing what you believe regardless of evidence to the contrary. The neo-cons in charge of American defense policy had tenuous evidence Iraq had WMDs, no evidence Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks...and no reliable evidence iraq posed a threat to the world. None of this mattered, because the drive to war was foreordained: war with Iraq was, has been, a long-standing dream of the neo-cons. 9/11 just gave them the opportunity to sell it to the American people. Which they did, dishonestly.
You can't separate the singer from the song. Bush's neo-cons dealt dishonestly with the American people, and with the world, in the name of a doctrine that would not bear an honest analysis.
Good response, Catsy. Separating the posts into two probably would have helped. The main tenets I refer to are: 1) pre-emption. Though this was never serious. Of course, we attack someone who is about to attack us. This is something that doesn't need to be declared. But what Bush and the neo-cons were really asserting (I'll take points off myself for mind reading - before you get a chance to) is the the right to pre-emptively attack somebody who wasn't planning to attack us. This doctrine was debunked by Bush's insistance of it and then the failure to find WMD. 2)Unilateralism. Another phony balony doctrine. Of course we will do things that have to be done when nobody else will help. But the circumstances where this is necessary are so rare as to be...well, really rare. The result we want is for most of the world to be on the same page with us. Our strength, moral suasion, and economic power makes this a doable thing. Sometimes, we have to be more like Augustus Caesar when he pretended that the Senate had power and less like Julius Caesar when demonstrated that they didn't. We need countries to buy into multinationalism so that we lead a world that's not at each other's throats. We don't get there by rejecting it ourselves. 3) Hegemony. This is something that will come to the degree that other countries agree to be led. Hubris is not the way to get there.
Posted by: fabius at August 18, 2004 08:36 AMOkay, here's my guidelines for intervention. These are not in order of importance.
1) we intervene, unilaterally if necessary, to stop an ongoing or imminent genocide. (see Kosovo. See what we should've done in Rwanda, and should do in Sudan).
2) we intervene in self defense after we are attacked. (see Afghanistan).
3) we may intervene to defend our allies when they are attacked.
4) the same attitude towards preemptive v. preventive war that held during the Cold War: preemptive war is justified. Preventive war is not. We do not invade unilaterally without an attack or an imminent threat. What changed after 9/11 was when the threat becomes imminent, because you have non-deterrable enemies. If Al Qaeda gets nuclear weapons Al Qaeda will use them, so the trip wire is the last step at which we can stop this from happening.
5) There is additional requirement that the war will actually do more good than harm.
Do you differ with those? If so, where? If not--I don't know. I sure as hell don't consider myself a neocon, because support for the Iraq war and uncritical support for Israel and support for preventive war seem like part of the job description. Also, my guess is that Wesley Clark and Howard Dean would agree with most of that list, and no one's ever accused them of being neocons.
And here is the thing about liberal reactions to bad news: I worked for one semester in asylum law. A lot of what I did was country research; some of it was client interviews. And in an asylum application, the worse news you find, the better your client's chances. You have moments of "yay! The West African peace agreement is falling apart!"; "damn, the doctor said she didn't undergo severe FGM after all"; "damn, the client only suffered mental abuse, not physical"; "thank God, the war criminal who threatens the client has not yet been arrested and is continuing to train mercenaries"; "damn, this South American country now treats gay people quite decently.
Was I actually glad about any of those things? Of course not; they were awful, I had bad dreams about them, and I realized this reaction was more than a little twisted. But the twinges were also probably inevitable--my supervisor said they'd all joked about the same things--and did not do any harm to any person. Most Bad Thoughts don't. So I didn't feel very guilty about them.
Also, with Bush--a lot of it is relief that the truth is actually coming out. I very much hope Seymour Hersh publishes additional revelations about Abu Ghraib, but it is not because I will have even an initial twinge of gladness about what he finds--it's because I have a strong suspicion of what happened and that it will happen again if this story dies.
Posted by: Katherine at August 18, 2004 10:01 AMStop worrying about the label "neo-con", which by the way does tend to describe ideologues rather than thinkers. Are you becoming more like Richard Perle or Wolfowitz? I doubt it. (They also don't like the label, and deny that there is such a group).
There are plenty of liberals who believe whole-heartedly in the righteousness of a proper use of military force, and are pained to see the opposite reaction by some liberals. Katherine's list above seems extremely appropriate for describing the proper use of power.
Unfortunately, "neo-cons" tend to be warmongers these days, and falsely label those who are not as violent as they as whining about any use of military force. Their picture of liberal thinking relies on a few truthful examples to suggest it describes all liberals. It does not -- its simply rhetoric for fighting their political wars.
Posted by: dmbeaster at August 18, 2004 10:44 AM(those are actually my guidelines for when to consider intervention without the UN or a formal alliance like NATO).
Posted by: Katherine at August 18, 2004 10:51 AM"The fact that something comes out of Bush's mouth or benefits Bush's re-election chances does not make it de facto wrong, but you wouldn't know that to listen to so much of the blogging left. Every setback in Iraq, every example of Muslim persecution, every bomb that goes off in a market is held up and trumpeted almost triumphantly, as if the fact that people dying and Iraq's continued slide into the next Afghanistan were a good thing simply because it vindicates their opinions of Bush and their predictions about what a colossal foxtrot-uniform invading Iraq would turn out to be."
You are right about this, however, if Kerry gets elected you can count on this continuing to happen except the criticism will be coming from the right this time. Bet on it.
I know where you're coming from though. I've had thoughts like these myself. I still keep coming back to Kerry, but only because Bush is so stupid and SO far to the right. While they may be more (not completely) correct on foreign policy, they are dead wrong (in my mind) on so many other things.
Posted by: Bill at August 18, 2004 11:06 AMBut when thousands of people are dying in wholesale slaughter, or an unstable regime poses a direct and unequivocal threat to our security, we must be able to say to the world: "We want to work with you, but we cannot stand by and do nothing."
Right. It's the neoconservatives who want to stop "wholesale slaughter." Tell me another one. And which "direct and unequivocal threat" does the left not want to confront? Better yet, which threats are direct, unequivocal and findable?
I do think there is truth to the notion that democratization in the Middle East will produce salutory results in terms of our security, is necessary in order to remedy the social and cultural conditions that allow Islamist terrorism to flourish, and is ultimately the morally right thing to do.
Well, um, of course. This is self-evident.
And there is plenty of room for discussion and disagreement about the proper means for doing so.
The neoconservative plan is to promote pro-US authoritarian regimes in place of authoritarian regimes that play the anti-US and anti-Israel card to keep their populations in thrall. That's what you like?
Let's kill terrorists, yes. Let's promote democracy, yes. (N.b.: the neocons don't give a rat's ass about democracy - they care about power.) Let's not pretend that all we need to do to transform an entire region's culture is the steady and increasing application of force. We're not going to kill our way out of this situation. The neocon world is fantasy land.
Posted by: Mithras at August 21, 2004 12:25 PMThe only definite change in your opinions I can find is that there is no international law. This is true. No set of rules which don't have a body with the power, responsibility, and authority to enforce them can be called laws.
Saying I Told You So is a natural human impulse, but I agree - a few commentators seem to discuss long term harm to the United States caused by Bush with ill concealed glee. Just as Rush Limbaugh calling prisoner abuse a little fun should anger all conservatives who are conviced we can win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, Michael Moore should anger liberals.
You ask, "why, then, do we suppose states and individuals inclined towards criminal acts on the international stage will be swayed by anything less than the credible threat of enforcement?" We need to remember how much worse threats of enforcement which cannot be carried out long term can weaken us.
Hey, the most important things about values is to constantly stare at them re-evaluate them, and change them if you need to. That is the thing that irks me about extremists on either side of the spectrum. :) Soo - good for you!
Posted by: Juri at August 17, 2004 07:40 PM