Year: 2003

My old friend Ian Buruma had a bracing essay in the Financial Times over the weekend. He baldly states something that is, to my mind, indisputable: the biggest force for conservatism in world affairs right now is the Western left. You only have to listen to what pass for their arguments about the remarakable experiment now being attempted in Iraq to witness the sheer Tory pessimism of them all. Their “anti-Orientalist” stance has robbed them of any means to criticize Arab or Islamist societies, or to support reform of them, even if it means temporary armed intervention. Their support for “peace” is really an argument for complete Western disengagement from societies and cultures where tyranny, genocide, terror and theocracy abide. How is it that one can scour the pages of, say, the Nation and not find a single essay marveling at the new freedoms in Iraq – of the press, of free speech, of religious diversity? Even when they do see the good side of, say, greater freedom for women in Afghanistan, their loathing of the Bush administration dampens much of their liberal conviction. Surveying the curdling of left-liberalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Buruma goes in for the kill:

The socialist debacle, then, contributed to the resentment of American triumphs. But something else happened at the same time. In a curious way left and right began to change places. The expansion of global capitalism, which is not without negative consequences, to be sure, turned leftists into champions of cultural and political nationalism. When Marxism was still a potent ideology, the left sought universal solutions for the ills of the world. Now globalisation has become another word for what Heidegger meant by Americanism: an assault on native culture and identity. So the old left has turned conservative.

Buruma is particularly acute in observing the parallels between old Tory bigotry about what those ‘colored people’ were capable of, and current leftist disdain for the whole idea of democratization in Arab countries.

PAT BUCHANAN MEET ARUNDATHI ROY: There is indeed a wonderful confluence of racist-right and racist-left in the attitude toward the liberation of Iraq. Both sides are desperately eager for the project to fail; they want it to fail so as to keep America – and its dangerous, universalizing ideas – at bay. That’s why Gore Vidal and Pat Buchanan are now indistinguishable in many ways; ditto Norman Mailer. Buruma again:

The conservative right (I’m not talking of fascists), traditionally, was not internationalist and certainly not revolutionary. Business, stability, national interests, and political realism (“our bastards”, and so on), were the order of the day. Democracy, to conservative realists, was fine for us but not for strange people with exotic names. It was the left that wanted to change the world, no matter where. Left-wing internationalism did not wish to recognise cultural or national barriers. To them, liberation was a universal project. Yet now that the “Bush-Cheney junta” talks about a democratic revolution, regardless of culture, colour or creed, Gore Vidal claims it is not our business, and others cry “racism”… In the case of Gore Vidal, there has always been an old-fashioned isolationist screaming to be let out of the great man’s bulky frame. But Tariq Ali, and many of his readers, would surely consider themselves to be internationalists. They profess to care about oppressed peoples in faraway countries. That is why they set themselves morally above the right. So why do they appear to be so much keener to denounce the US than to find ways to liberate Iraqis and others from their murderous Fuhrers? And how can anybody, knowing the brutal costs of political violence, especially in poor countries split by religious and ethnic divisions, be so insouciant as to call for more aggression? Perhaps it is a kind of provincialism after all.

Yes, it is provincialism; and self-hatred; and a kind of intellectual blindness. I’m not speaking of legitimate liberal critiques of Bush’s foreign policy. I’m talking about the left’s desire to keep the developing world in thrall to its demons, because they view the West as no better – or worse. It is a form of nihilism, masked as moralism. That’s why so much is at stake in Iraq. It isn’t just the front line in the war on terror; its successful emergence from tyranny is vital if we are to keep the universal human value of freedom alive.

“Obviously part of the premise of my book is that this is not the most honest administration. So I don’t know what to think of his religiosity. I really can’t tell you – but I’m suspicious. I’m very suspicious of the way he uses it. I’m suspicious that it’s done for political purposes and that he really isn’t as religious as he makes out to be. But he might be. I don’t know.” – Al Franken, not even giving George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt about his religious faith. Is there nothing the Bush-haters won’t accuse him of?

Maybe you have been struck by how extraordinarily popular Elaine Pagels’ new book on the Gospel of Thomas has become. It’s not as scholarly as her previous books, but it’s no light read. My suspicion is that a great many struggling Catholics have bought this book, in order to find some help as to how they can maintain their faith in the Gospels, in the sacraments and in the people of God, while withholding obedience to a hierarchy that has so obviously lost its way. Pagels’ book is wrenching for its own spiritual honesty; and inspiring in its search for the message of Jesus buried under layers of church politics and power for so long. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it – at least as much for the questions it helps sharpen as much as any answers it might provide. Because the quality of the teaching priesthood is now, by and large, so execrably low, Catholics have long tried to understand their faith on their own. And it’s encouraging to see some of the frustrations many of us now have going back to the earliest days of the Church. I loved the story of Tertullian who saw both sides of orthodoxy and dissent:

Not long afterward, Tertullian, already famous as a champion of orthodoxy, himself joined the new prophecy and defended its members as genuinely spirit-filled Christians. Although to this day, Tertullian stands among the “fathers of the church,” at the end of his life he turned against what, at this point, he now began to call “the church of a bunch of bishops.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

J-LO – VICTIM: Yes, the Observer of London espies in the popular ridicule of Jennifer Lopez yet one more reason to loathe America – she’s targeted because she’s a minority:

No one but Lopez and Gonzalez could have known what was said during their two-hour meeting, no one except every journalist in the United States and beyond. ‘Voodoo psychic adviser to J-Lo blamed for stars axing big day’ screamed the headlines, which sounded utterly ridiculous to anyone in their right mind, although perhaps not to Jennifer Lopez herself. After all, she knows better than anyone what life in America is like for a Latina actress with ambition.

If that kind of money, fame and glamor is a function of “what life in America is like for a Latina actress with ambition,” then bring it on.

WOMEN AGAINST ARNOLD: No one has yet accused Arnold Schwarzenegger of sexual harrassment of workplace underlings or rape. So where were these “women’s groups” during the Clinton administration? Shilling for the abuser. And why didn’t the reporter ask about their double standards?

“I’m not sure how the ‘Flypaper’ strategy strikes most readers, but to me it-looks like the latest variation of a strategy dating back millennia-to Sun Tzu where I believe it was described as taking something-of great value from-your enemy and holding it.- Julius Caesar employed it in a campaign in Asia Minor were his army-aggressively-took control of the local food and water supply and switched to the defense and ultimately slaughtered a desperate enemy.- In our own history, the Confederacy’s last hope at Gettysberg was broken when Lee with little choice attempted and failed-to take the Little Round Top, a hill he could not permit the Union forces to hold.
-In more modern times it is described as being strategically aggressive and tactically defensive.- No strategy always works, but historically forces that employ this one tend to survive better than those upon whom it is employed.- Perhaps among your readers there is someone with amore expansive knowledge of military history who can expond in more detail.
-Meanwhile, I for one am convinced that who ever is behind the ‘Flypaper’ strategy knows his stuff.” – more reader feedback on the Letters Page.

MORE CONSERVATIVES AGAINST THE FMA: Here’s a shocker: some federalists and conservatives actually don’t believe that states should be denied the right to decide for themselves what is and is not a marriage. Here’s the link to the open letter to Senator Cornyn. Money quote:

The proposed amendment interferes with the rights of states, rights that have been consistently recognized since the founding of our Nation. Under our federal system of government, family law has long been the province of the states. A basic principle of American democracy and federalism is that government actions that control a citizen’s personal life and liberty — such as government actions that control people’s decisions about whom to marry — should be made at the level of government closest to the citizen, rather than by the U.S. Congress or by the legislatures of other states.
States already actively regulate marriage; for example, 37 states specifically prohibit marriage between same-sex couples. That is a choice that they are now free to make. The Amendment will wrongly deny those states — which is to say, the states’ citizens and their representatives — this choice.

But the religious right is not interested in people or states having the ability to decide for themselves! Where would that leave us? They might disagree with the fundamentalists. Here’s another interesting follow-up from Eugene Volokh. And a simple reality check: at the height of the summer backlash, before any real public discussion of the matter, the polls showed only 50 percent support for the FMA. That’s barely enough to credentialize a law, let alone an amendment to the Constitution.

THE PERILS OF PAKISTAN: Bernard-Henri Levy lays out the case for suspicion.

Another excellent blog reaches its one-year anniversary.

Why can’t most of the Democratic candidates see how Iraq and 9/11 are deeply connected?

ARIANNA: Chatting with an English friend on the phone yesterday, she reminded me of what they used to say about Arianna Stassinopoulos at Cambridge University: “the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus.” Keep an eye on the Pacific Ocean.

My friend Lawrence Kaplan had a terrific little piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Terrific because it put its finger on how quickly a cultural and political divide emerged in the war on terror. By and large, the Democratic party is now opposed to continuing this war, as currently envisaged, and want to wind it down as fast as possible, seeking diplomacy over force, denying the nexus of terror in the Middle East, eager to undo the new mechanisms law enforcement has to prevent future terrorist attacks, while engaging in Dowd-like attempts to embarrass and infantillize the men and women with the dreadful responsibility for our security. Listening to the Democratic debate earlier this week, I was amazed at how few had any strategic plans for taking the war to the enemy, how the very concept of ‘enemy’ seemed to unnerve and embarrass them. Similarly, the New York Times, a paper that witnessed first-hand the terror, now prefers to use the occasion of the anniversary for a classic piece of moral equivalence, comparing the murder of 3,000 innocents to the U.S. complicity in a coup in Chile thirty years ago. For these people, the first instinct is always, always, always, that the United States is morally suspect. They haven’t changed. The moral clarity after 9/11 terrified them. They wanted it to go away so badly so they could switch the conversation back to the faults and evils of America.

CLARITY FATIGUE: And they have, of course, partly succeeded – not because they managed to inflate, say, Enron’s collapse into the greater event (though that was one of the more comic Raines-Krugman gambits). They succeeded in the end not by argument but by the effect of sheer fatigue. No democracy wants to believe it is under dire threat; no one wants the abnormality to endure; no one wants to absorb the truth that the war is still in its infancy and that greater atrocities lie ahead, unless we act forcefully to pre-empt them and build the kind of societies in the Middle East that are alone guarantees of our and their future peace and stability. I have made plenty of criticisms of this president; and will do so again. But he’s currently the only leader in this country who actually gets the depth of our predicament and the need for innovative, enterprising and ruthless action to improve it. The paradox is that the more he succeeds and the more the threat of terror recedes, the more his opponents will take the calm as evidence that nothing much has to be done, that nothing much has been done, that America, by acting, is the real source of world conflict, and that retreat and amnesia are the cure-alls. I don’t think most Americans believe this. I think they are still angry and still afraid and still determined. But they will suffer more than a thousand cuts from the September 10 brigades in the coming months and years. I remember thinking two years ago that support for the war was easy then; but the real test would be in a few years when forgetfulness would set in and complacency revived. Which means, of course, that the real test of our mettle is now. So the question is not, once again: what have we done wrong? It is: Where are we going to hit those bastards today?

“How much I must criticize you, my Church, and yet how much I love you! You have made me suffer more than anyone, and yet I owe more to you than anyone.-I should like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence.-You have given me much scandal, and yet you alone have made me understand holiness.-Never in the world have I seen anything more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous, or more beautiful.-Countless times I have felt like leaving you, my Church; and yet every night I have prayed that I might die in your warm, loving arms.” – Carlo Carretto, 1910 – 1988.

“Blair Gets A Pass from Iraq Intelligence Panel” – New York Times.

“UK Parliament Clears Blair Over Iraq Arms” – Financial Times.

“Blair ‘overrode terror warnings'” – BBC News.

BAATHIST BROADCASTING CORPORATION II: This recollection from a reader who only just avoided a car accident:

Here’s a BBC classic, heard while driving on September 11 listening to BBC World Service in car… Sorry couldn’t write down exact words. Was around 10.25 Greenwich Mean Time – roughly 6.25 in USA…:
“At the one extreme you have George W Bush, at the other Osama Bin Laden..”
Just as I was choking on this one the presenter went on to say and…in the middle, President Musharaff is pointing out that relations with the Muslim world have deteriorated since 9.11 etc etc…

Ah, yes. Bin Laden and Bush. Just as bad. Aren’t they, Noam?

I found this section from London blogger “Belgravia Despatch” very moving.

SQUANDERING SYMPATHY?: Blog-Irish scans the Irish press two years ago for evidence of the huge amount of sympathy and support for the U.S. after 9/11. Not much there. The U.S. was hated and resented before 9/11. And America’s effrontery in fighting back had an absolutely predictable response. How can we be expected to please people who refuse to be pleased?

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “Why bother with Iraq? Why fight terrorism? Try this from Richard Hillary’s classic WW2 autobiography written after months of surgery following being shot down.
In a train compartment on the way to Scotland Hillary asked Peter Pease, another young pilot, his reasons for fighting. ‘Well, Richard,’ he said, ‘you’ve got me at last, haven’t you?’
‘I don’t know if I can answer you to your satisfaction, but I’ll try. I would say that I was fighting the war to rid the world of fear – of the fear of fear is perhaps what I mean. If the Germans win this war, nobody except little Hitlers will dare do anything… All courage will die out of the world – the courage to love, to create, to take risks, whether physical or intellectual or moral. Men will hesitate to carry out the promptings of their heart or brain because, having acted, they will live in fear that their action may be discovered and themselves cruelly punished. Thus all love, all spontaneity, will die out of the world. Emotion will have atrophied. Thought will have petrified. The oxygen breathed by the soul, so to speak, will vanish, and mankind will wither.’ Peter Pease was killed in action.
Richard Hillary returned to the RAF and was killed in a plane crash during night training. He was 23.” – more feedback on the Letters Page.